Q&A: David Cross on Upcoming Arrested Episodes and It's a Disaster

Right now is a great time to be a David Cross fan. The Arrested Development star is in a new indie comedy, It's a Disaster, out in theaters and on-demand today, about a chemical weapons terrorist attack that interrupts a couples brunch. Later this year, he'll play Allen Ginsberg's dad in Kill Your Darlings (he played Allen Ginsberg in 2007's I'm Not There). He also has a book with his Mr. Show pals Bob Odenkirk and Brian Posehn slated for this fall, and he's working on getting a movie he wrote financed.

Oh, and of course, he'll be streaming on your TV, tablets, computers, and/or phones starting May 26, when he reprises his role as Tobias Funke on the long-awaited season four of Arrested Development, coming to Netflix.

We talked to Cross in New York City this week about all of that and his Depeche Mode cover band.

ESQUIRE.COM: In It's a Disaster, your character Glenn is first seen in a PT Cruiser.

DAVID CROSS: Yeah, that's product placement. No, it is not. I think that's an appropriate car for Glenn.

ESQ: Just that car tells us a lot about him.

DC:[Laughs.] I appreciate your observation and not passive but rather aggressive way of paying attention to movies. Yeah, I think you're right. A lot of people wouldn't necessarily connect those two things.

ESQ: Do you have a love of films that depict humanity being wiped out in one fell swoop?

DC: No... I mean, how many are there? I certainly like The Boy and His Dog. What other post-apocalyptic things are there? The Village was terrible.

ESQ: There was a period where asteroids were going to hit the earth and kill us...

DC: Yeah, but it didn't happen, right? I will say, It's a Disaster is not the end of the world. It's just the end of the world for these characters. They imply that there's these terrorist acts that are happening around the country, but I bet people in Austin and Kansas City and Madison, Wisconsin, are watching on the news going, "That's too bad for them."

ESQ: I did get the sense that this would be fking horrible if it did happen.

DC: When you hear the description of what the VX gas will to do to you in about three, three-and-a-half hours, yeah, it's horrific.

ESQ: Should this even happen to you, and God forbid...

DC: Thank you so much for saying that. I'm glad you qualified that statement.

ESQ: Well, I want to make sure that's clear. I really don't want that to happen to anybody.

ESQ: If you had the opportunity to listen to one last album, what would it be?

DC: I think Now That's What I Call Music! 114.

ESQ: The one with the Ke$ha single?

DC: I don't know.

ESQ: Have you ever been a "couples brunch" type in your life?

DC: No, not really. I'm not even a big brunch guy. Unless I'm really hungover. I'm not a wake-up-and-immediately-start-eating person. Some people wake up, have coffee, "Gotta have my eggs!" On the weekend, if I've been drinking, I tend to wake up later, so first thing, people are like, "C'mon, we gotta meet at noon for brunch." But! I like brunch food. The idea of couples brunch — I'm sure I have done it. I'm just not aware of it. It didn't leave any kind of memory, good or bad.

ESQ: How'd you get involved with It's a Disaster?

DC: America Ferrera is friends with my wife and was going to do it and sent me the script. I initially said, "Do not even send it. I do not care." I had just come back from eight months straight in London, where I never went home. I got back to the States and was looking forward to being home, hanging out in New York, hanging out with my wife and my dog and enjoying not working. Right after I came home, I had to go to L.A. for this thing my wife was doing, and she was like, "You gotta check out this script, but the only thing is, it shoots in 10 days. And you have to be here for another five weeks." I was like, "Don't even send it. I'm not doing that. I'm not fking staying another five weeks away from home, especially if I have to be in L.A." "Just read it, please." And I read it in one sitting, and I loved it, and I called her and said "I'm in. I love it. It's great."

ESQ: "I might be slightly annoyed, but I can't not do it."

DC: Yeah, once I met with [director] Todd Berger, who's this really cool, chill guy. I'm hyper-sensitive to natural dialogue, where the jokes aren't shoehorned in where they didn't think of a joke. Like, how can I construct this scene so I can get a joke about pillows in? All the jokes and the funny things — they're all natural things that people say. And coupled with the fact that it's a character that I don't get to play, kind of more grounded, straight man in this crazy world. I would put it up there as one of the three best experiences I ever had. It was difficult. There was no budget, no trailers. And it was the hottest week on record that week in L.A., and it was supposed to be the fall, and I'm in a sweater and a corduroy jacket. It was about 103, 104 degrees in that house with all the lights and everything. Still, it was one of the best times I've ever had.

ESQ: Scene to scene, it goes from little funny nugget to something really uncomfortable to watch.

DC: I'm drawn to what I like and don't like. I'm drawn to that kind of comedy. I didn't see the movie — it could be fine, but I'm guessing it's not — but when I see something like The Incredible Burt Wonderstone or whatever — and it probably cost $30 million to make. This movie cost under a million, and it's way funnier. The thing that those movies are supposed to do, this movie does a lot better. And it's a little more thoughtful. Part of it is being as old as I am. Not that I'm jaded. I'm a consumer of that product, and I can tell, Oh, I'm not going to like that. That's not going to have that many jokes, and the jokes are going to be dumb. And I don't mean to single that movie out. I mean any of these big-budget comedies. And I can look at It's a Disaster and go, That's going to appeal to me for so many reasons.

ESQ: There's finally a premiere date for the new season of Arrested Development. Are you carving out time to watch it?

DC: I guess I haven't thought about that. I guess I will. I don't know about carving out time. I don't have a 9-5 job, luckily. If I'm not working on something, I'll be able to watch it. Yeah, I suppose I will.

ESQ: What was the first thing you did in reprising the role as Tobias?

DC: I think literally the first thing we shot was me walking out of an airport getting hit by a bus. I think that was the first thing we shot for the entire series. I know that was the first day of shooting. At the delightful Burbank Airport. I think that might have been the first shot.

ESQ: I read an interview with Jason Bateman that indicated [creator] Mitch Hurwitz's writing on this next season was pretty fantastic. Is it next-level sitcom writing?

DC: I think so, yeah. Next-level in the sense that — writing it for this new model of watching television, which you know, the industry has caught up to the way people watch TV. So he was able to write for that new model with Netflix. He did a very smart and at this point unique script in the way of telling these stories. So I think it's the next level. Some people don't give a shit about cleverness, you know. Hopefully the way they constructed this show will influence other shows. It's not just jokes and silly characters saying silly things. There's a whole story, and there's this whole level on how they lay this story out that is an additional way to appreciate and fall in love with this idea.

ESQ: Is the way you wrote Mr. Show similar to this new season of Arrested Development at all?

DC: Well, it's similar in the sense that we took this pre-existing concept, which is Monty Python linking sketches, but instead of a stop-start, we tried to make them more fluid. I think we took that idea and made it our own and elevated it a little bit, so that you'd appreciate some of the parts, but also the whole of the parts. I don't think it shares that much else with Arrested, but in that it was an advancement of the form. I think it shares that. I sound like I'm teaching a course at USC.

ESQ: Of the new episodes, which Arrested character storyline did you love the most?

DC: Oh, man, they're all so, so good. The two scripts that made me laugh out loud the most — I mean, laugh out loud, at home, by myself — the two scripts that really made me laugh were Lindsay's [Portia De Rossi] and Buster's [Tony Hale]. Buster's is constantly laugh-out-loud funny. And I've seen some of the dailies from stuff that Tony was shooting with Jessica [Walter], and I mean, it's just the funniest fucking, laughing-'til-your-sides-hurt.

ESQ: Another film you're in is Kill Your Darlings. I haven't seen it.

DC: I haven't seen it either. I hope it's good. I'm curious.

ESQ: You play another Ginsberg. Are you being type-cast as a Ginsberg?

DC: I've played his dad. Now I'm hoping for Naomi, and I've sorta done the whole family, right? And then I'll just hire my services out to lesser-known, ethereal celebrity lookalikes.

ESQ: There needs to be another big David Cross project. Is there one in the works? A comedy record, a show, something.

DC: I'm always writing. I have a script that is at my agent's. A movie script that I'm trying to get financing for, that could be made very cheaply. And it's somewhat inspired by It's a Disaster. I've got an amazing, killer cast lined up that have all verbally agreed to be in it. So it's just a matter of getting financing for that. Which is not easy, at all. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Bob and I have a book coming out and Bob, Brian Posehn, and I will do a tiny little tour do help promote it. By then, I should have another hour-and-a-half to roll right into.

ESQ: What's your script about?

DC: It's about a couple different things. In a nutshell, it's about how mercurial and easy it is to become famous in America and how this new generation aspires to do that. I feel like it's about a lot more than that. It's also about people who are well-intentioned but buffoons who make everything worse. In a very American, specifically Brooklyn, super-specifically Williamsburg way. And what happens when those two windows to those worlds meet.

ESQ: The year sounds very promising.

DC: I hope so. It's easier said than done, raising a million dollars. But yeah, I appreciate your interest and your optimistic desires. Which is also the name of my Depeche Mode cover band: Optimistic Desires.

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